Mallick Aforethought

Heather Mallick writes a column for the CBC about what she calls a “surreal police overreaction.”

I see it a little differently. I think Mallick is being shockingly classist. She apparently holds it an unquestionable truth that laws should not be enforced against university professors.

One is apparently only supposed to arrest members of the lower class; certainly not professors, albeit for the very same act. God forbid that a member of the upper class should have to suffer a ride in a “fetid paddywagon” (sic). A policeman ought not to question such a man, and ought to accept questioning of his own authority, or being called a “hominid,” with good grace from such a man, because, after all, a professor socially outranks any mere policeman. The policeman should have realized this immediately when the suspect had “an accent that resembles that of the Queen.” The stupid peasant. The “thug,” to use Mallick’s word.

Mallick is pleased to report, however, that at least the Atlanta police chief was reprimanded over the incident. And, of course, the professor was released by a judge without charge the instant, as Mallick recounts it, the latter heard the Queenly accent: once he had said “three or four words.” This, of course, to Mallick, is plain justice. God forbid such a thing as justice should be blind. God forbid that we should all receive equal protection of law, no matter how refined we might be.

For that "fetid" ride, though, and for spending eight hours in a police station, Mallick declares the poor long-suffering professor a “martyr.”

Better yet, Mallick reveals, it all explains American actions in Somalia.

Yep. They’re probably nefariously trying to spread democracy and equality before the law even there.